The winner of the Idaho Prize for Poetry 2016

Winner of the 2016 Idaho Prize for Poetry, selected by Gary Lilley

WHAT IT DONE TO US • ESSY STONE

What it Done to Us, by Essy Stone, is a poetry of narrative tension, sense of place, and with a wide-angle scan of lyrical language. There is a landscape here, the depiction of Appalachia, a beautiful backdrop of loves and struggles with violence, poverty and all its minions such as drugs and crime, and its religion. Stone has created a southern gothic for today . . . a testament, a collection that could be the mythology that we find at the intersection of flesh and spirit, or maybe it’s the reveal to a hard-times question like, “Why does the Devil get here faster than God every time?” This is a tough community that Stone, with a deft touch of empathy and eloquence, shows us, and we begin to know these folk. These poems are understated but highly charged vignettes from the hollers, a shadow world of the embattled folk who bear up and just do what needs done without apology. This is a stunning debut collection, and it is our introduction to an amazing poet, Essy Stone.

—Gary Copeland Lilley

ABOUT THE WINNING POET

Essy Stone recently completed a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry at Stanford University. She received an MFA from the University of Miami, but spent most of her life as a waitress in East Tennessee. Her poetry has been published in Prairie Schooner, 32 Poems, and is forthcoming in The New Yorker.

The SHORT LIST 2016

SUNGRAZER by James Crews

THE MOON NEVER AGES by Casey Charles

ODE to the EARTH in TRANSLATION by George Looney

THE FIRE ACADEMY by Dana Roeser

SOUTHERN TONGUES LEAVE US SHINING by Mark Wagenaar

[ganbatte] by Sarah Kortemeier

WHITE BIRDS by John Clarke

SAD ATLAS by Bradley Harrison

SAME WATER FLOWING by Judith Small

A FILAMENT BURNS IN BLUE DEGREES by Kendra Tanacea

TALKING TO YOURSELF IS FINE by Sally Dawidoff

THE INFINITY ROOM by Gary Fincke

HABITAT GROUP by Dave Snyder

LOST HORSE PRESS thanks all the poets who submitted their work to The Idaho Prize for Poetry 2016; we appreciate our First Readers for their keen reading skills; a hearty thanks to Gary Lilley, Final Judge for his insightful choice; and, most of all, congratulations to Essy Stone, winner of the Idaho Prize for Poetry 2016.